Halevi, Glushchenko star for Israel on first day of Euros

Yohai Halevi became the second Israeli ever to reach the European Championship final in the triple jump.

By ALLON SINAI
YOHAI HALEVI 311 (photo credit: Ofer Byda/IAA)
YOHAI HALEVI 311
(photo credit: Ofer Byda/IAA)
Yohai Halevi became the second Israeli ever to reach the European Championship final in the triple jump on Tuesday night, equaling his personal- best leap of 16.76 meters in the qualifiers in Barcelona.
The 28-year-old followed in the footsteps of Rogel Nachum, who reached the triple jump final at the Europeans in 1998 and still holds the Israeli record with a jump of 17.20m.
Halevi had to leap 16.75m to advance automatically to the final and after jumping 16.34m with his first attempt, he matched his personal best with his second effort to make Thursday’s final.
Earlier Tuesday, Dmitriy Glushchenko opened Israel’s participation in the championships on the right foot, advancing to the semifinals of the 100m.
Despite finishing only fifth in the second heat with a season-best time of 10.44 seconds, Glushchenko will take part in Wednesday’s semis after recording the best time among those who finished outside the top four in the five heats.
Glushchenko qualified with the 16th best run overall and will likely need to significantly improve his personal best time of 10.25s if he’s to reach an historic final.
Twenty-two-year-old Moges Tesseme finished 20th in the 10,000m final on Tuesday, clocking a time of 29:50.78m.
In other action, Mo Farah led a British 1-2 to win gold in the 10,000m final, sprinting past Ayad Lamdassem of Spain at the start of the final lap and crossing the line in 28 minutes, 24.99 seconds at Barcelona’s Olympic stadium.
Chris Thompson took silver in a time of 28:27.33, and Daniele Meucci of Italy finished with the bronze. Lamdassem was fourth.
Race-walker Stanislav Emelyanov of Russia won the first gold medal of the European track and field championships on Tuesday, and Nadzeya Ostapchuk led a Belarussian 1-2 finish in the women’s shot put.
AP contributed to this report.